Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are often colloquially referred to as “drones,” are becoming increasingly popular among consumers, businesses, and government. For example, large numbers of individuals and organizations are using UAVs mounted with video cameras to obtain high angle or downward facing video segments to supplement more conventional photography for such applications as video blogging, event photography, event monitoring, and/or the like. The typical UAV is controlled remotely by an operator using a hand-held controller that allows the operator to control altitude, orientation, direction, and velocity of the UAV as well as the photo, video, and/or other sensory functions of the UAV. During operation, the hand-held controller (and thus the operator) typically remains in line-of-sight or near line-of-sight with the UAV to allow the operator to monitor the flight of the UAV and to maintain bidirectional communications between an antenna on the hand-held controller and an antenna on the UAV, which typically have to remain within line-of-sight or near line-of-sight with each other. This typically limits the range of the UAV and may also place limitations on the bandwidth of the communications that may limit the amount and/or quality of photo or video data being transmitted from the UAV to the hand-held controller.
Much of North America and other parts of the world are serviced by sophisticated wireless communications networks that are capable of supporting high bandwidth bidirectional communications, such as 1×, 3G, 4G, 4G LTE, and 5G networks. These networks are typically used to support mobile devices such as cell phones, smart phones, tablets, lap tops, and/or the like and not only provide support for phone calls, text messages, and email, but also provide support for internet communication, video streaming, and/or other high bandwidth applications.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to adapt the capabilities of these networks to support both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight communication with and control of UAVs.